Caryn Bellus and Ben Carter, of our Miami office, closed out 2024 and started 2025 with consecutive wins in the Fifth District, obtaining affirmance of two summary judgments in first-party property cases brought by the same assignee, based on the assignments’ noncompliance with Section 627.7152. In Holding Insurance Companies Accountable a/a/o Stephen Wells v. American Integrity Insurance Company of Florida, the assignee argued its assignment was not required to comply with the statute, which governs assignments to or from a person “providing services to protect, repair, restore, or replace property, or to mitigate against further damage to property,” because the only “service” the assignee provided was filing a lawsuit to collect insurance benefits—which would be used for roof repairs pursuant to a direction to pay contract—rather than actual repairs. The trial court disagreed and entered summary judgment for the insurer. The assignee made the same argument on appeal, and Caryn and Ben responded that the assignee’s “services” were inextricably intertwined with repairing the property, and thus the assignment was invalid because it did not comply with Section 627.7152. The Fifth District affirmed following oral argument.

As a result, the assignee attempted to dismiss two other pending appeals on the same issue, including Holding Insurance Companies Accountable a/a/o Leonard Caruso v. American Integrity Insurance Company of Florida. However, the Fifth District declined to recognize the dismissal, and instead issued a written opinion affirming summary judgment for the insurer. The opinion emphasized testimony from the assignee’s corporate representative acknowledging that the goal of the lawsuit was to recover the replacement cost of the insured’s roof, and accepted Caryn and Ben’s argument that even though the assignee would not personally scale the insured’s house to repair the roof, its assignment was required to comply with the statute because it was seeking funds to facilitate those repairs. By expressly holding that the mandatory pass-through of benefits from the assignee to the roofer places the assignment within the reach of Section 627.7152, the Fifth District put to rest the assignee’s long-running attempt to avoid the requirements of the statute. View the opinion here.